Page 66 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Thunder crashed like cement blocks collapsing around him.
A darker silence filled his bedroom.
The blue pinpoint of the standby light on the television was gone.
The stillness that was the absence of the air conditioner swelled. The wind outside the house roared louder.
The red coal of the charging station on his nightstand had disappeared.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
The small white emergency lighting above his door powered on, and the backup generator rumbled through the walls.
The house’s security system, the refrigerator, and the blowers on the gas fireplaces were connected to the generator.
Out of habit, Blaze rolled off the bed to scout his neighbors’ houses on each side of his, expecting to find darkness covering the entire neighborhood under the thick clouds and the black depths of the lake swallowing the horizon.
Through the thick summertime trees between his house and his neighbors’, the exterior lights of the other houses still shone over their pools and backyards.
The tiny red light that should have been shining beside the lock of his sliding glass door was gone.
They’d interrupted his security system from coming back online with the emergency generator.
An attack. He was under attack.
The shushed grating of sliding glass doors somewhere in the house whispered through the air.
Blaze ducked behind the bed. He gorilla-crawled around the corner of it and nudged his door open to surveil the hallway.
No intruders yet.
His weapons were to the right.
Sarah’s room was straight ahead.
Blaze leaped to his feet and sprinted silently on his bare feet, trying to reach Sarah before—
Four intruders rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, guns held low in outstretched arms.
Two ducked into Sarah’s room. Two turned away and advanced farther into the house.
Blaze ran harder those last few steps, digging into the floor with his toes and pushing off, and he twisted and launched himself through Sarah’s doorway.
21
Active Shooters
Sarah
Because Sarah was used to awakening with the sun’s first rays tendrilling over the horizon, the emergency light’s sudden glare in the middle of the night woke her right up.
She rubbed her eyes and stared at the white fan of light on the ceiling.
The long window that reached both corners of the room but only halfway to the floor was as dark as if it were a painting of nothing but thick, unrelieved black oil paint hanging on the wall.
Storm clouds covered the moon and stars. The darkness looked like a void, and Sarah’s mind bobbled for a minute as she struggled to figure out if she was dreaming.
The door underneath the emergency safety light gaped open.
